Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-06-16
STRANGE SKIN DISEASE
the Slow, Insidious and Cumulative Effects
of a Diet Of Bad Maize.


rhs Slow, Insidious and Cumulative Enects
of = Diet Of Bad Maize.
About the middle of the last century
strange disease began to spread among
The peasantry of twosomewhat circum-
,cribed districts, very nearly on the
same parallel of latitude, but separ-
ated by several meridians of longitude
the country around Oviedo, in the
Asturias, and the districts of Bergamo,
Milan and Brescia. in Lombardy. The
new disease was somehow associated
with the field laborer in spring and the
most notable part of it was an eruption
of red or livid swollen patches on the
backs of the hands, on the face. or on
other exposed parts of the body, with a
feeling of tension or burning, from
which the disease came to be called
pellagra, or ''smarting skin" The
skin affection, which subsidized at
the end of summer, to reappear next
spring, was but a small part of the
trouble, as the sequel showed. Season
after season the strength became less;
mysterious disorders of the organic
nerves began to show themselves, pro-
ducing arrangements of the digestion
and circulation and of vision; the I'M
happy peasant was gradually reduced
to a kind of mummy. with all his angles
protruding, and very often he ended
his life either in fatuus imbecility or in
mania and suicide. From its original
small center around Oyiedo it gradually
invaded other parts of the Asturias and
other provinces of the north of Spain.
At the same time it became a feature
of the peasant life over steadily in
creasing area of Lombardy, and before
the end of the century it was settled in
Vcnetia and the Emilia on one side
Of the peninsula and in Tuscany on
the other, while the peasants of Pied
mont and Liguria were more slightly
affected by it, and not until
later date. The same remarkable
species of disease began to show itself
about the year 1918 in the Gironde,
near Arcachon, and in a few years it was
found in many villages of the Landes
found among the peasantry of many
parts of Roumania. and few years
later it occurred in so remote spot as
the island of Corfu. These are the
seats of pellagra at the present day,
the cases among the peasants of
Northern Italy being estimated to num-
Der about 1O0,00 while they are pro-
portionately less numerous in the other
foci of the disease. Several commits
siorss have inquired into the circum-
stances of this new species of disease,
and hundreds of papers have been
written on it. The uniformity of its |
type in several regions many leagues |
apart, among peasants of various
and under different Gov !
ernments, has been found to depend |
upon the steady operation of uniform |
cause, and that cause an obvious and |
sense one. There is no longer |
any doubt that pellagra is the slow, in
sidious and cumulative effect of a |
staple diet of bad maize, Of bread and
porridge made from the poorer sorts |
of Indian corn grown on soils where it |
will not ripen perfectly, gathered in a |
wet state. badly husbanded, apt to de- |
compose in the grain or flour, and still |
more apt to spoil in the ill-baked loaves
Of bread. 1t is not maize diet of it
self, nor even an exclusive diet of
maize that gradually brings on the
profound disorganization of the organ
ic nervous system and of the higher
nervous faculties; but it is diet of
maize. such as is apt to fall to
the share of the poorer peasants in
those maize-growing countries of
Europe where the climate is not always
favorable to that sub-tropical cereal.
The circumstances in Corfu are pc
culiarly striking. Pellagra began to
be seen there in more than occasional
cases just when the cultivation of the
grape had replaced maize-growing in
a good many of the communes. The
old taste for maize diet remained, and
Indian corn to supply the deficiency
was brought into the market from
other countries. A large proportion of
the imported maize has been shown to
be an inferior article from the Danube,
all the more likely to be damaged or
from its long water transit
by the Black Sea.-QuGrterly ReUieU.
A Reliable Remedial Agent.